First of a series of cooperative adventures released for Organized Play events, Forgotten Souls provides Descent players with a fully cooperative (no one plays the Overlord) experience. The Track Sheet is marked with Fate and Doom tokens that march toward each other as bad things happen and when heroes get defeated. If too many things go wrong, the markers will meet and the players lose. Three numbered “main encounter” cards are stacked in order with random cards to create a semi-random exploration deck that also provides a story line for this adventure. When doors are opened a new area is explored and an Exploration card is drawn and new tiles and challenges are set up and described.

The Overlord phase works really well to provide a great challenge. First, the active Exploration card directs an action based on the location. Then, if there is no active Exploration, Fate advances and a Peril card throws a random nasty event at the group. Finally monsters activate based on special Activation cards that in our experience play really well. The result is a fast paced adventure full of surprises. And all without one player having to take on an adversarial role.

A printed copy of the rules not being included and not mentioned on the outside of the packaging was a shock, but easily remedied by printing them out from FFG’s website. While the first play through is exciting and new, after several plays the adventure and cards are well known and begin to seem repetitive. This adventure is also very challenging, so expect to lose the first time or two while figuring out the best approach to the challenges.

Forgotten Souls is a wonderful, inexpensive addition to Descent. Only the core Descent game is needed to play. The experience is fully cooperative and the system created for running the Overlord phase works amazingly well. The adventure can feel like a bit more like a race than an adventure due to trying to avoid Despair cards by keeping moving. In truth, Forgotten Souls simply makes me wish for more of this type of cooperative adventure.

Though I believe this review to be fair and objective, I feel obligated to provide the following information. This review was written based on a privately purchased copy. I have a long standing relationship with Fantasy Flight Games as a freelance contractor including as a play tester and paid editor for Descent expansions. No compensation for this review was involved.